Archive for the 'amsterdam' Tag

In the Netherlands, I Fight Stains

While I was in Amsterdam last year, I came across Sunil brand laundry detergent at the grocery store, which was pretty cool.

I just found some of their ads on YouTube, which I feel compelled to post here, if for no other reason than that they contain my name.

Here’s an old black and white ad:

In this one, I fight stains with martial arts:

I have no idea what they’re saying. Maybe one of you out there on the internets will translate the videos for all of us?

October 22, 2008 | no comments | tags: , , , ,

Amsterdam: A Refreshing Look at Transportation

Having grown up watching the Portland area adapt to its rapidly growing population through road and freeway expansions, numerous MAX lines, a Streetcar, an aerial tram, and commuter rail, all in combination with lots of new construction, I’ve always been interested how cities are designed in advance to support their future inhabitants.

Dutch transportation infrastructure is designed in a unique way which supports access to members of every strata of society. In the city, streets are flanked by well-marked bike lanes and sidewalks, complete with three sets of traffic lights — one for cars, one for pedestrians, and one for bikes. While this is a logical extension of American infrastructure, there’s a paradigm shift akin to that in India: the largest vehicle rules the road in any case of confusion. Bikes rarely slow down or stop for pedestrians. In many areas, trams join the party, and their tracks are not remotely grade separated. Within 48 hours, I saw bikers cut across tracks and cars make U-turns in front of moving trams with mere meters to spare. Even so, the equal access system seems to be successful with few problems while granting people many transportation choices to suit their individual needs.

August 20, 2007 | no comments | tags: , , ,

Long Time, No Post

According to Technorati, it’s been a full 75 days since my last post on this blog. That’s quite a long time. Since then:

When I was originally thinking about starting a “serious” blog, Rajat’s first response was that I needed to define what I would write about. I think that part’s taken care of. There are plenty of interesting things to write on, like what I’m doing in Europe — I just need to sit down and get it all on (digital) paper. Hopefully I can cover all of the backlog with a barrage of posts in the next few days and start blogging regularly again.

August 7, 2007 | no comments | tags: , , , ,

Reflections on “Murder in Amsterdam”

At some point in each of its seasons, 24 has done a excellent job in showing what the US might look like as its population retaliates against a certain segment of people, which usually turns out to be the American Muslim community. Questions regarding Fox’s accuracy and biases aside, Ian Buruma seems to have done the same, except that in this case, the scenario is real.

Buruma effectively illustrates the shocked response to the murder of Theo van Gogh as a juxtaposition against Amsterdam’s philosophy of pragmatic tolerance. The discussion of this particular incident is supplemented by a narration of many immigrants in Amsterdam, allowing for many sides of the discussion to be seen by readers.

The book did a good job of drawing a picture of the current state in the Netherlands and Europe with regards to public sentiment towards immigrant communities. Since this is very much a current issue, one is left with a sense of incompleteness, as there remains a lot to be said. I learned quite a bit, and would recommend it for anyone interested in the issue.

May 23, 2007 | no comments | tags: , , ,

A Practice Interview

I have always been a little apprehensive about conducting interviews, since I’ve never been in a position where I think the time I’m asking of someone else would be worth giving up for them. In this case, however, it was a good experience. We were assigned to conduct an interview to practice for ones we might be conducting while researching in Amsterdam, using Dr. Philip N. Howard’s in-depth research format.

I chose a few questions related to wayfinding that we might ask in Amsterdam, and found someone in the dorm where I live whom I didn’t know particularly well. This selection wasn’t aimed at someone particularly comfortable with wayfinding, as we will be interviewing students similar to ourselves in our research. I didn’t indicate my subject area of interest before the interview began.

Content wise, I started off with “have you ever” questions, and followed them up with “why?” in order to gain a better idea of the circumstances or intentions at play. This combination yielded two discoveries. First, the interviewee was very eager to share in both instances, and provided a lot of interesting details when asked to describe their experiences and/or intentions. Second, it gave me a clear idea of how long a simple interview could potentially last if not kept in control. As mentioned above, I want to keep interviews both interesting and useful to maximize what we can learn from them, while not wasting anyone’s time, if possible.

I didn’t record or take any notes of the conversation, as the questions were very straightforward and I don’t have a problem remembering the responses I received. Of course, this will not be the same in our research methods, as we’ll have to document and analyze numerous similar interviews.

Questions and answers that came up during the interview are not posted here in order to avoid confounding our research results, as everyone in our research group will likely read this post.

May 23, 2007 | no comments | tags: , ,

Ethnographic Research: More Questions

The questions never stop. We began by identifying areas of interest, then created research groups, tried to come up with a research question, and are now trying to design a research method.

Today’s post brings about three questions:

  • What is our study group?
    In order to make the most of our month in Amsterdam, we will need to find a convenient group that is easily accessible, and large enough to draw reasonable conclusions from.
  • What questions can we ask of that study group?
    If each researcher has a slightly different research question, how can we develop a cohesive research method that answers all of those questions without being a significant stress on the study group?
  • How do we deal with differing levels of technological savvy?
    Granted that this is a research question within itself, a “digital native” will be more comfortable answering our questions than a non-native. Can or should we somehow make the transition easier for people uncomfortable with new technologies?

May 14, 2007 | 1 comment | tags: , ,

Defining and Implementing E-Research Techniques

research, n.1
1. The act of searching (closely or carefully) for or after a specified thing or person. [oed]

If E-Research is simply the use of the Internet in research methods, it could be any of the following:

  • using an online card catalog to find relevant books
  • using Google to find relevant web content
  • using any number of other webapps for experiment execution or analysis

Unless the object of study is actually the Internet, or some phenomena occurring on it, it doesn’t seem like these tools actually change research methods more than they aid them, by providing unparalleled access to information and analysis of just about anything, whether it be the last hour’s news or an eighteenth-century scientific survey.

On the other hand, E-Research could involve the study of online representations of any subject, through methods such as link analysis and usage studies. This latter definition seems to be what the VKS is focused on.

A study of wayfinding practices like the one we are planning can easily incorporate all of the above. In the first context, online research tools can be used to find previously published information in helping to design and substantiate a research plan. That plan can in turn incorporate an online component, such as a study of how people use some technology to aid their wayfinding behavior.

May 2, 2007 | no comments | tags: , , , ,

Does Tolerance Require Ironic Consequences?

As has been made evident by numerous incidents in our world’s history, it can be difficult for members of society to peacefully tolerate viewpoints that are extremely different or at odds with their own, regardless of the provisions that society has made for free speech and thought.

In Murder in Amsterdam, Ian Buruma suggests that second generation immigrants become isolated and thus make extreme alliances because of an alienation from both Dutch culture and that of their parents. I have trouble accepting this line of thought. Conflicting cultures won’t necessarily result in a resort to extremism, though that is a definite possibility in the case of deliberate rejection by one’s peers. Beyond simply promoting assimilation, I think this issue is more a question of how we tolerate and respond to other cultures.

The question of how we should tolerate, like most interesting questions, brings up many more:

  • Should we be tolerant of concepts we know are incorrect? There is significant evidence backing the existence of global warming and evolution, yet our society continues to cultivate the unscientific opposing viewpoints. Maintaining this marketplace of ideas is critical in supporting free speech and general progress.
  • How do we compromise between the need to promote plurality of ideas versus the need to protect potentially dangerous information? The rapid production of knowledge and the Internet’s infinite capacity for storing it allows easy access of practically any idea to anyone (unless they’re in certain countries). If that information happens to be sensitive, offensive, or dangerous, what do we do?
  • Can we be tolerant of intolerant opinions? When extremists promote ideas of prejudice and or violence towards others, how should government arbitrate?
  • If the stakes change, can (and should) we violate our ideals of freedom in exchange for other protections? The USA PATRIOT Act comes to mind.

Thoughts? Answers?

April 30, 2007 | no comments | tags: , , ,

A Self Portrait

Perhaps this is a new blog meme.

How someone might see me:

Subject: Student
Sex: Male
Age: 18-20, partially based on the expected age of an undergraduate student.
Race: Indian
Religion: Not apparent, though a string around the right wrist might suggest something.

Clothes: Subject wore pants, shirt, and a jacket. The clothes fit fairly well. The pants were a pair of blue denim jeans, fairly standard for an American college student his age; they were not torn or distressed. The shirt was long-sleeve black t-shirt, with Google’s logo written across the chest in full color, covered in part by a somewhat worn Columbia Sportswear fleece jacket. The jacket was unzipped, indicating that the subject did not find it chilly, but not warm enough to go without the jacket – on the other hand, it could indicate a compromise for personal comfort in exchange for a public display of the bright logo.

Hair was cut short and combed forward, without any visible signs of styling gel or other artificial products. No hair accessories present.

The only bodily accessory visible was the previously mentioned string around the subject’s wrist. No jewelry or piercings visible. Shoes were laced and tied brown suede sneakers, with the Reebok logo visible.

Given the numerous visible logos and fairly stereotypical clothing for an American male college student, the subject was apparently participating in the current fashion standards for his gender and age.

The Backstory:

This outfit was not intricately planned, as I was in a hurry that morning, but what I wear is generally chosen by the events I expect to encounter on that day. This specific day was to be occupied with a few classes on campus, hence the casual clothing and comfortable shoes. It was cloudy when I looked outside in the morning, so I chose to wear a jacket and long-sleeve shirt. As one could expect, the combination of Pacific Northwest weather and school has resulted in a fairly consistent uniform of a t-shirt, fleece jacket, and jeans.

If I wanted to taken more seriously, say, for an interview, I might have worn a button-down shirt, khakis, and some nice shoes, but that’s not what I set out to do in the morning.

The shirt happened to be a freebie American Apparel t-shirt from Google’s on-campus tech talk during fall quarter, while the jeans were a pair I bought from Aeropostale last summer.

April 25, 2007 | 1 comment | tags: , , ,

The Informational City

In Understanding Amsterdam, Manuel Castells discusses the change of urban structure in response to the advancement information technology, claiming that “the coming of a technological revolution centered on information technologies, the formation of a global economy, the transition to a new society, that [...] replaces the industrial society as the framework of social institutions.”

Seattle is probably a good example of a city currently undergoing that shift. As a city that began with the goal of becoming a great trading port, and rose to that status through an economy focused on lumber and shipbuilding, it has become a place where people “come for the jobs at cutting-edge companies such as Microsoft and Amgen” and thus the best-educated city in the United States.

As Castells outlines, this change has significant consequences on the urban structure of a city. Corporations such as Microsoft are well suited creating their own world in the suburbs, given that they need relatively little face-to-face business interaction with entities in Seattle. At the same time, many of the well-paid employees at these companies are moving downtown, leading to the rapid development of condos, coffeeshops, and restaurants.

If this shift to an “informational city” is in fact reshaping the urban and suburban areas of our cities to serve the wants and needs of the upper middle class, our society needs to answer the question of how it will serve those who aren’t educated and/or rich.

April 18, 2007 | no comments | tags: , , , ,

The Olympic Sculpture Park


Get out now. Not just outside, but beyond the rap of the programmed electronic age so gently closing around so many people at the end of our century. Go outside, move deliberately, then relax, slow down, and look around. Do not jog. Do not run…Walk. Stroll. Saunter…Explore.

Heeding the words of John Stilgoe in Outside Lies Magic, a few of us went to the Seattle Art Museum’s relatively new Olympic Sculpture Park yesterday morning to make observations regarding wayfinding in urban spaces, in order to help us develop a question for research in Amsterdam.

I found the park to be an incredible use of what was just recently an industrial wasteland. The layout of the park gently guides one along a Z-shaped walkway, providing many opportunities for one to saunter off into auxiliary paths and alcoves without letting visitors forget that they are in a museum. Impressively, the park integrates itself into its surroundings, crossing over Elliot Avenue and the BNSF railway, and landing at the shoreline of Elliot Bay.

The morning’s slow pace allowed us to “read the city” and make many observations, especially about the rapid proliferation of condo buildings throughout downtown Seattle, and the effects that such construction has upon the city’s storied history, both physically and socially.

On a somewhat unrelated note, at some point in this discussion, the topic came up that cellphone conversations almost always begin with the caller stating their current location. If you think about it, it’s true – the context of a phone call generally holds a good deal of importance, regardless of the call’s purpose, and a mobile phone does not (visibly) transmit the implicit location information carried by landlines. How long will it take before caller ID includes that contextual information, such as location and maybe even a Twitter status?

April 16, 2007 | no comments | tags: , , ,

Wayfinding Online

In looking at how people interact and “move” in the online world, there are infinitely many places to look for examples to evaluate.

First off, a user’s browsing patterns are clearly and intimately visible on the page of any active del.icio.us account. Not only is a viewer given a clear idea of the user’s personal interests, one can infer how a user moves between noteworthy sites through both time and cyberspace.

Taking a more social look at online browsing patterns beyond bookmarking, we can note the shift from a static web to what is now known as Web 2.0, where users become active participants at almost every website. This has possibly brought the shift from us following links in static web pages while keeping a definite goal in mind (just as we follow “see also” citations in encyclopedias), to an extremely transient movement pattern by way of links in blog posts, blogrolls, and randomized searches. Furthermore, sites like Digg and Technorati make evident the temporal popularity of ideas, as people discover, visit, and discuss interesting news and websites in a simultaneous and collective fashion.

This brings about yet another question: how has the dramatic shift from static to dynamic online content affected wayfinding patterns on the Internet?

April 11, 2007 | no comments | tags: , , ,

Creating a Research Group

As is rather apparent at this point, I’m quite interested in utilizing the resources of the Virtual Knowledge Studio to conduct research related to the flow of information online and the social implications which follow. Of course, this range of interest is extremely broad, and I am definitely open to a topic that is outside of the range I outlined in my previous post. In particular, the discussion of virtual wayfinding techniques and the question as to how national identities are presented online have piqued my interest. I think that any of these ideas can effectively extend the research being done by other members of our group and can successfully make conclusions about the use and social implications of technology.

In terms of how I would like this research to be situated, my main goal for the trip is “international engagement,” so I have not seriously considered working towards published material. However, it is my perception that all or most of the research I am concerned with could be done without significant involvement of human subjects, since much of it could involve social network analysis and other related methods of study. If this turns out to be true, it might be worth pursuing the idea of a publication, as these topics are currently of wide interest to the academic community.

Challenges to be faced in the near future include the process of narrowing a research topic and creating a group where everyone is interested in and comfortable with the topic we choose to commit ourselves to. Let’s do this!

April 9, 2007 | 2 comments | tags: , , ,

Questioning the Internet’s Social Implications

A large component of the trip to Amsterdam consists of social research in the region. We will be working with the Virtual Knowledge Studio, which is a relatively new Dutch think tank concerned with the evolving use of technology in research.

I’m particularly interested in how technology usage patterns differ in various regions of the world. For instance, the use of mobile phones differs greatly between most continents. These differences are especially evident when looking at their use in various regions of the developing world. While we’re not surprised to see a twelve-year-old carrying her own pink RAZR, it’s common for multiple families to share a phone and even a single email address in many parts of the world. Other ideas contrary to our usage patterns, such as airtime rental have created new markets for trade elsewhere and are allowing rural areas to connect with the rest of the world.

Ideas

The very advances in connectivity that are brought through new developments in communication technology carry the potential of modifying the way societies operate. People’s online behavior generally mirrors and extends their offline concerns, as is visible at any community website or forum. Online social networks have struggled with appealing to more than a small subset of the global population, as these concerns vary greatly between regions. For this very reason, Google’s Orkut has seen great success in developing regions such as Brazil and India, while Facebook is ingrained in the everyday lives of American college students.

Leading off of this issue is the fact that people have begun spending a significant amount of their social energy in online interactions – this means that people no longer have a need to connect with their neighbors for social stimulation. I suppose that this could make it more difficult for a tolerant society like ours or Amsterdam’s to promote assimilation and intercultural understanding, as individuals would be less likely to interact with others who have differing interests and value systems if they can find people similar to themselves online.

Questions

  • How do cultural differences in interpersonal interaction affect the way people use and expect technology to function?
  • Has the Internet’s emergence reduced cultural tolerance in Amsterdam due to the ease of long-distance communication?

Evidence

In order to study the effects of technology, it would be necessary to first determine the usage patterns applied in a region. These could be determined through surveys and interviews of end-users, as well as discussions with people who teach the use of technology, such as librarians. Interviews of the general population could be used to determine what is expected of technology, and how it is used on a day-to-day basis. To answer the second question, the above methods could be extended to gauge the general sentiment regarding Internet use and its consequences.

April 2, 2007 | 4 comments | tags: , , , , ,

Tolerance and Submission

In preparation for my study abroad journey to Amsterdam this summer, I will be posting on topics relevant to the trip, specifically looking at Dutch culture and pragmatic tolerance. This marks the first post in a series of what I hope to be many.

A viewing of Submission, a short film written by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and directed by Theo van Gogh, evokes many responses. The film, while not very artistically stimulating, details the story of a young Muslim woman who was married by her parents through arranged marriage to a man she felt no attachment to. She elaborates, in an inquisitive prayer to Allah, explaining how she had loved in secret prior to the marriage, and is now subject to beatings by her husband and rape by her uncle. While attributing her tolerance to the trust required by Islam, she cannot help but feel alone – upon seeking help from her parents, she is told not to challenge the honor of her relatives.

Critics of this film challenge it as provocative, polarizing, insulting, and misrepresentative of Islam. In fact, Theo van Gogh was murdered months after Submission’s release in 2004, and a letter pinned to his body expressed anger at Hirsi Ali’s views against Islam. While this film is surely clear in its feelings regarding the trust called for by the Qur’an, the film transcends Islam, highlighting the problem of domestic abuse and cultural excuses for oppressive societal structures – these are visible throughout society, and are not problems faced only in the Islamic world.

On the other hand, Andrew Stuttaford at the National Review attributes this murder to the Dutch’s tolerant practices:

Mass immigration, of course, played a part in creating the social pathologies that cost Van Gogh his life, but its effects were exacerbated by official Holland’s embrace of multiculturalism, a dogma that made integration impossible and alienation a certainty.

I don’t believe that tolerance carries the certain result of a polarized society. In order for a society to cultivate and be tolerant of a plurality of ideas, it must recognize the point at which one’s personal freedoms are encroached by another and intervene to allow for that system of pragmatic tolerance to thrive.

March 28, 2007 | no comments | tags: , , , ,